Week of 9/18
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
BUS SCHEDULE:
Bus 231- running
Bus 233- running
Bus 235- running
SPECIALS:
P.E.
PTO
Please see the flyer in my email about our upcoming Timberwolf Trot. All students who register will get to participate in CrAzY Hairy Day on Thursday, September 21st!
LEARNING TARGETS:
READING
This week, our focus will be on reading and understanding a variety of nonfiction texts. We will be studying nonfiction text structures and learning how they can help us better understand what we are reading. The students and I will also be identifying important details in texts and using those details to determine the central, or main, idea. We will also be comparing two different texts on the same subject and using information from both pieces to enhance our comprehension of a specific topic.
WRITING
In writing, the students will be working on their first draft about their favorite birthday. Our main learning targets this week will be centered around making our writing more interesting to the reader. We will be working on varying sentence structures and incorporating stronger adjectives and verbs.
MATH
We are finishing up our current topic on multiplication patterns and properties. The students have done such a terrific job on using and understanding the distributive property to solve basic multiplication problems. We will be reviewing this topic towards the end of the week and will be taking our assessment at the beginning of next week.
SOCIAL STUDIES
This week in social studies, we will be shifting our attention to the United States and the regions within. The students will be researching a specific U.S. region and creating a banner to share their region's geography, weather, agriculture, and industry.
Week of 9/4
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
BUS SCHEDULE:
Bus 231- off
Bus 233- running
Bus 235- running
SPECIALS:
Art
BEGINNING OF THE YEAR ASSESSMENTS:
In this week's Thursday folder, you will be receiving information regarding your child's beginning of the year assessments in reading and writing. This includes their iReady scores, guided reading level, oral fluency rate, and their 3rd grade math readiness assessment results. Please be sure to look over this information and let me know if you have any questions.
LEARNING TARGETS:
READING
This week in reading, we are continuing our study of realistic fiction. Our main focus will be on summarizing stories, character development, and character perspective. We will also be working on identifying context clues in stories and using them to help determine the meaning of unknown words. In phonics, we will be studying closed syllables (syllables that end in a consonant and have a short vowel sound).
WRITING
We will be finishing our personal narratives on our favorite summer memory this week. We have taken our time with this piece, as it is important for students to understand the planning and process of writing before moving on to larger pieces. This week, we will be revising, editing, and writing our final copy. We will be working on adding adjectives to make our sentences more interesting, using a variety of sentence structures, and identifying words that require capitalization. The students and I will also be reviewing the personal narrative writing rubric so they are aware of expectations and can set writing goals. These graded pieces will be sent home at the beginning of next week.
MATH
In math, we will be using number relationships and patterns to help us with our basic multiplication math facts. The students will be explaining their thinking with words and picture representations. We will be finishing this topic at the end of the week and reviewing on Monday of next week. Our topic assessment will be next Tuesday.
SOCIAL STUDIES
This week in social studies, we will be studying how physical features affect communities. We will be discussing landforms, climate, natural resources, and natural hazards. The students will be "traveling" to other countries through an online linktivity, which includes using Google Earth.
Week of 8/28
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
BUS SCHEDULE:
Bus 231- running
Bus 233- running
Bus 235- running
SPECIALS:
P.E.
LEARNING TARGETS:
READING
This week's text set will focus on how traditions can teach us about different cultures. We will be reading a variety of realistic fiction and focus on story elements, character perspective, character development, and visualizing. We will be using text evidence to support our thinking. Our class will also be starting small reading groups this week. These reading groups are flexible and skill focussed. Our Fundations phonics focus this week is on digraphs and blends.
WRITING
All students are working on writing a personal narrative about their favorite summer memory. This week our focus will be on using a flow map to plan our writing and using quality supporting details to make our readers feel how we felt. We will also be studying different sentence structures (simple, compound subject, and compound predicate) to make our writing have a good flow. Our spelling focus is on long vowels.
MATH
We will be taking our first enVision math assessment on Tuesday over understanding multiplication and division of whole numbers. The students will be bringing home their graded assessment on Wednesday for you to see, sign, and for your child to return. Our new math topic begins on Wednesday, which covers using and understanding patterns of basic multiplication facts. As with every topic, the students will be taking a pretest over this new topic and be placed in a small math group.
SOCIAL STUDIES
This week, we will be learning about different communities and cultures around the world. We will be mapping their location and discussing their human, physical, and cultural characteristics. Our class will also be learning about how these characteristics affect communities.
Week of 8/21
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
BUS SCHEDULE:
Bus 231- running
Bus 233- running
Bus 235- off
SPECIALS:
Music
LEARNING TARGETS:
READING
This week in reading, we will be looking at narrative nonfiction. Our big focus will be on mapping story events in chronological order (using a flow map) and using those events to summarize a variety of texts. We will also be studying theme, main idea and supporting details, and asking and answering questions.
WRITING
In writing, the students will be practicing how the writing process looks in our classroom with their first piece about a favorite summer memory. We will be reviewing single paragraphs and move into multiple paragraphs most likely by the end of next week. There will be a lot of modeling this week, with our mini lessons on paragraph organization and word choice. Our grammar focus will be on identifying and writing a variety of sentence structures.
MATH
This week in math, the students will be learning and practicing a variety of ways to solve unknown multiplication problems. We will be starting groups this week based on this unit's pretest which the students took last week. The main emphasis in the first semester of third grade is multiplication and division. It would be great if your child could begin memorizing their basic multiplication facts at home through games, flashcards, online games, etc. I will be sending out a couple of links at the end of the week for optional practice at home.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We will be starting with our study of communities this week. We will be looking at what makes a successful community and how other communities around the world are similar and different to ours. The students will also be learning and reviewing map skills.
Week of 8/8
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
BUS SCHEDULE:
Bus 231- running
Bus 233- off
Bus 235- running
SPECIALS:
P.E.
LEARNING TARGETS:
Our big target this week is to build our classroom community! We will read and discuss several back-to-school picture books and work on getting to know one another. The students will share about themselves and together they will participate in several team building and collaborative learning activities. We will also work on classroom routines and expectations. Additionally, our class will review a few thinking maps (circle map, bubble map, and double bubble map) used at TTE, write "I Am" poems, and review place value through a variety of activities and games. This is going to be a terrific year!